Discovering what matters to you is one important clue to building a satisfying life and finding work that you enjoy. But becoming aware of your own personalities and talents is also key to this pursuit. To understand why, you will read about people who have made an excellent match between their personal characteristics, talents, and values and their careers.

For practice, read the first profile about Jeanne Trufant in the reading, People Who Love What They Do. Go back to the reading and underline the sentences that provide clues to the answers. This will help you see how to find the answers in the other profiles. You can also refer to the guide, What Matters to Me.

For the worksheet, you will choose three profiles (not including the practice reading) to read from and then answer the questions.

Teacher Notes

As a class, work through the practice profile (the video game reviewer) and the practice questions. Guide students to recognize where the answers can be found in the reading. Emphasize that the first question is directly answered in the reading, while the second and third questions will require them to think about what they’ve read and the values they’ve learned about and make a judgment based on that information.

Go over the assessment criteria as a class and answer any questions. Then give students time to begin reading and answering the questions on their three profiles. Make it clear that the practice profile does not count as one of their three choices.

When about 15 minutes are left in class, ask for a show of hands for each profile to see which ones students chose. Tell students to pair with someone who worked on one of the same profiles as they did and compare notes. If their partner’s work gives them new ideas, they may revise their own assignments. Follow this procedure with a couple more of the profiles, as time allows.